Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta now available for download

Per expectations, Adobe Systems on friday formally introduced a beta version of Adobe Photoshop CS3 software, the next release of its industry standard digital imaging software.

The San Jose, Calif.-based software developer said it's making the Photoshop CS3 beta widely available in order to enable customers to more easily transition to the latest hardware platforms, particularly Apple?s new Intel-based systems.

The beta is available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform, as well as for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista computers. Meanwhile, the final shipping version remains on track for the Spring 2007, the company said.

"This is an exciting time for the Mac, and Adobe wanted to ease the move to new Intel-based systems with a preview release of Photoshop CS3," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. "We didn't want to leave Windows customers out of the party, so the beta is available to everyone in the creative industry's most passionate user community -- no matter what their platform choice."

Some notable features of the new release include a new user interface, camera RAW enhancements, a Quick Select tool, and a much improved print dialog and print preview function. The folks over at Adobe have also built in Auto Blend and Auto Align tools, improved black-and-white conversion control, and refined the software's cloning and healing tools.

In addition to the outfit of new features, Photoshop CS3 beta also includes a pre-release version of a major upgrade to Adobe Bridge, as well as a preview release of the all-new Adobe Device Central. The new Device Central will allow Photoshop users to design, preview, and test mobile content, created specifically for smaller screens. The fully integrated tool aims to simplify and accelerate the creation of mobile content through a preview environment and built-in device profiles.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only. Customers who have a valid serial number for all other language versions of qualifying Adobe products can still download the software. Even without a serial number, Adobe will still allow users to download a version of Photoshop CS3 beta that will expire after two days. However, customers must register online (free) with Adobe or have an existing Adobe.com membership account to access the software.

"We still have some surprises in store, but this beta gives customers an early chance to see the power of another great Photoshop release, optimized and tuned to run natively on the latest hardware and operating systems," Loiacono said.

you can convert any layer into a smart object and apply non-destructive filters to it. this is huge. since the advent of adjustment layers everyone's been wondering why we have non-destructive adjustments but not filters. so that's a big one.

there are a bunch of other neat little features like being able to clone from multiple sources.

plus some of the new layer effects are very nice. things like channel mixing to a grayscale image (non-destructively).

the added functionality of photomerge and creating seams is nice for panorama shooters. it's still not as good as a dedicated stitcher, but it's quite nice.

the refine edge adjustment is very nice for adjusting layer masks and the like.

also, adobe has integrated a nice raw file importer that takes some cues from lightroom. nice addition to the workflow.

there's nothing absolutely groundbreaking in this beta, but a lot of the features are very nice and so far looking well implemented.

the lynda.com ones are very nice. good run through on some new features. i'm not a big "magic wand" type of guy, but the new quick selection tool is pretty nice. i could see using that for quickie jobs where i'm not looking for the perfeclty detailed mask.

Its pretty nice, the palettes are a little funky, AFA locations go, but they seem to be quite customizable once you get use to it. they are all docked really small and you click on a tab to see the particular palette, kinda space saving it seems. Speed wise seems pretty snappy on my dual core G5.The Bridge app works MUCH better now, way more responsive when launching! Also, the available ram in the prefs has been expanded! Now PS can access more the 2gb of ram! and it is using possibly core image because in the prefs it detects what type of grafx card you have. It is fairly snappy when applying filters as well. However there is still a varity of program error mesages popping up, but alas it is a beta...

anyone sorta feeling PS3 leaves a bit to be desired? smart filters is cool, and i have waited for a vanishing point tool along with the universal support. actually if it wasnt for the universal hype i think this update would be less significant. again though, the smart filters are cool however you'll notice that you cant apply multiple filters and mask them individually. all filters applied to a smart object share the same mask. sorta limiting.

anyone sorta feeling PS3 leaves a bit to be desired? smart filters is cool, and i have waited for a vanishing point tool along with the universal support. actually if it wasnt for the universal hype i think this update would be less significant. again though, the smart filters are cool however you'll notice that you cant apply multiple filters and mask them individually. all filters applied to a smart object share the same mask. sorta limiting.

yes, this is one thing i'm not really loving about smart filters. they should be maskable individually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelb

Rejected my valid Photoshop CS2 serial.

Disappointing for a customer whose upgrade payments stretch all the way back to v2.5 (~1993).

did you try to use your cs2 serial in the beta itself or did you go to the website to request a cs3 beta serial?

Honestly.. I think the major feature in this release besides it being universal is the fact that it taps into the grafx card power to help process images (along with expanding the ram usage), which makes sense these days given the cards that are being developed. This feature should have been developed a few yrs ago by Adobe of all people, leave it to Apple to take the first step. The non destructive filters are nice as well. My 2 cents.